Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award

Ms. Mabeth Hudson, long-time parishioner at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Towson, Md. has received Virginia Theological Seminary’s 2014 Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award. This award celebrates the vitally important ministry of the laity in the church and beyond.

The award is given each year by the Seminary to honor an Episcopal layperson who, over a significant period of time, has given leadership and unique witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ within his or her congregation, community, Diocese and in the world.

Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans was born February 21, 1872, in Bedford County, Virginia. She married Joseph Brown Whitehead of Oxford, Mississippi, at St. John's Episcopal Church in Bedford on October 8, 1894. Mr. Whitehead was one of the original bottlers of Coca-Cola. The Whiteheads were well-known and respected in Atlanta and generous to community causes. When Mr. Whitehead died in 1906 of pneumonia at age 42, Mrs. Whitehead assumed complete command of the family's Coca-Cola interests which led to her appointment to the Board of the Coca-Cola Company in 1934. Seven years after her first husband’s death, she married Col. Arthur Kelly Evans, a retired Canadian Army officer.

Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church and gave unselfishly to its activities. During her lifetime, she contributed to over 130 different charities and institutions, including Virginia Theological Seminary, with the intent of fostering religion and education and relieving and comforting the underprivileged and the afflicted. Mrs. Evans was known for her concern for others and a genuine benevolent spirit. She died in 1953 after an extended illness. Virginia Theological Seminary established The Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award in 1998 in order to more fully honor her life and ministry.

Nominations for the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award may come from bishops, clergy, or lay people. Candidates for the award must be active laypersons and communicants in good standing of an Episcopal congregation and must reside in Alabama, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. The deadline for submissions for the 2014 award is January 31 2015. The recipient will be announced in early spring 2015.